Couple puts Lincoln images up for sale

Friday

Jun 27, 2008 at 12:01 AMJun 27, 2008 at 12:58 AM

The more than 150 images of Abraham Lincoln that collectors Jim and Carole Shay have displayed at the Springfield Art Association Gallery of Art include a portrait of the 16th president made up of text from the Gettysburg Address.

Tamara Browning

The more than 150 images of Abraham Lincoln that collectors Jim and Carole Shay have displayed at the Springfield Art Association Gallery of Art include a portrait of the 16th president made up of text from the Gettysburg Address.

Created in 1926 by Nathaniel Chasin of Washington, D.C., the portrait was purchased by the Shays from a shop in Gettysburg, Pa.

“Half the fun of collecting is finding — we call it ‘the quest’ — and then sharing it with others,” Jim said.

For $286, someone else may own the Gettysburg portrait given the fact that the Shays are selling all the images in the exhibition, “The Many Faces of Abe: The Jim and Carole Shay Collection.”

A percentage of proceeds will benefit the art association’s exhibit and collections programs.

But Angie Dunfee, the art association’s executive director, wants the public to focus on the exhibit itself, not the sale.

“It’s showing how Lincoln’s image has been interpreted and used for decades for advertising, for political purposes, for commercial purposes and also in fine arts,” said Dunfee, who added that the exhibition isn’t necessarily a historical show.

“We have a set percentage (30 percent) in our gallery for anything that sells there, so it wasn’t something that was set between the collectors and the art association.

“That’s just a happy happenstance that came up that they decided to sell the collection. It wasn’t for sale when we were negotiating having the show.”

With a total value in excess of $15,000, the Shays’ collection of Lincoln images began in the early 1970s. They couldn’t afford to pay $1,000 for a court document with Lincoln’s signature on it, so they turned to collecting images of Lincoln instead, and the collection has taken up “quite a bit” of the Shays’ Springfield home, Jim said.

Members of the art association since 1967, the Shays wanted to benefit the organization by selling their Lincoln images, Jim said.

“We’ve had fun with them. We’ve taken photographs of them. Now it’s time to pass them onto somebody else and let the art association benefit from some of the proceeds,” said Jim, who is retired, along with Carole.

The exhibition is organized by themes: commercial art, political pieces and fine art.
“Best by Test” is a slogan on the framed package of “Old Abe Cigars,” which may be purchased for $86. The hand fan “Freedom’s Flight: from Abe to Ike, 1854 G.O.P. 1954” is available for $72. A photograph by the former Herbert Georg Studio of Springfield taken from an original negative of Abraham Lincoln owned by King V. Hostick of Springfield sells for $572.

Images that are unsold will go back to the Shays’ home, where they will continue to be displayed.

“It isn’t as if we’re letting them go. I still have them in my camera. Now we’ll have more space in our house to probably collect more Abraham Lincoln images,” Jim said.